


memories turn into daydreams become a taboo

by eluvion



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Symbolism, Worldbuilding, a LOT of poetics, just a mix of Thoughts on killjoy stuff, meaningless poetics, the author cant stop writing killjoy stuff at 3 am
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 10,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23974342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eluvion/pseuds/eluvion
Summary: The desert is made from moments. Snippets of memories, or perhaps the same ones through another set of eyes, lay under a layer of dust in the minds of those lost and found along the way. Place your hands in the dust of memories, feel the sand and skin and stars under your fingers, and dig. What you find may surprise you.Or, a collection of snippets about the Zones, the City, and everything in between.
Relationships: Agent Cherri Cola & the Fab Four, Dr. Death Defying & the Fab Four, Fun Ghoul & Jet Star & Kobra Kid & Motorbaby & Party Poison (Danger Days)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 14





	1. Four Acceptable Levels of Dead

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of my Thought's on the expanded killjoyverse, all of which are found on my [killjoy writing tag](https://nightwing-hunter.tumblr.com/tagged/killjoyverse-drabbles) on my [Tumblr](https://nightwing-hunter.tumblr.com/).  
>   
> The title of this collection is taken from Panic! At The Disco's House of memories.

The first is physical death, getting that shot torn through you, feeling yourself bleed out into the sands, letting go and falling into the dark. Every killjoy goes through the first level, usually sooner rather than later. Everyone knows that each of the Fabulous Killjoys went through this level of death.

The second level is public death. It’s when Doctor Death Defying announces your physical death on WKIL 109. It’s when the desert knows that you are dead, when their hope in you disappears like a puddle evaporating into the air. Each of the Fabulous Killjoys have traversed this level as well.

The third level is spiritual death. The Phoenix Witch will guide you beyond the world, lead your ghost out of the shadows of the living, but She can not find you without a guide. So when another killjoy puts your mask into the Mailbox, She finds you. The Girl had pushed Kobra Kid’s red mask into the Mailbox. She had placed Fun Ghoul’s rubber, latex zombie mask inside. She had put Jet Star’s helmet on top of the Mailbox. And, eventually, after more than a decade, the Girl had placed Party Poison’s yellow mask in the Mailbox. The Witch had taken all of their souls and led them on.

The fourth level is memory death—when there is no one else to remember you, and you fade from the world completely. No one wants to be forgotten, and no one is. Every killjoy passes on stories about the ones that came before. Killjoys’ names and colors are carved into walls, their signs painted onto abandoned ruins, their stories told around campfires. The Fabulous Killjoys have never reached this level. Every soul in the desert remembers them, either from experience or legend.

No one in the desert has ever gone through all four levels of dead. 

And _this_ is why they say that killjoys never die.


	2. The Diner

There are spaces in the Zones that feel too empty. Something about those empty sands feels like someone was supposed to be there, but it is cold and empty instead, despite the sun. Cold gusts of wind blow through the desert, pulling people with them. 

Some say that these spots are where ghosts stay. The killjoys that never get taken to the Witch, caught in-between the layers of death. They say that the ghosts haunt the empty spaces of the desert watching firefights and flames. 

They aren’t where a killjoy died. Nobody likes to stay in the spot where they died. More often, it is a ruin that they had loved, or a hill they had watched the faded sunbeams from, or a mural with a quote that had stayed with them for years. They go back to the places they lived the most and haunt them. The noise and the colors of the killjoys fade in these areas, and they are a place of mourning.

Not even the dracs stay in ghost spots. The masked are too close to the dead. The living are too far away. Killjoys can feel the chill of spirits’ breath and know to keep away.

Ghost spots are vacant. Desolate. Lonely.

They are created from the ‘joys that gave their colors. Every death has an impact, and these are the ricochets of a killjoy’s death.


	3. Ghost Spots

There are spaces in the Zones that feel too empty. Something about those empty sands feels like someone was supposed to be there, but it is cold and empty instead, despite the sun. Cold gusts of wind blow through the desert, pulling people with them. 

Some say that these spots are where ghosts stay. The killjoys that never get taken to the Witch, caught in-between the layers of death. They say that the ghosts haunt the empty spaces of the desert watching firefights and flames. 

They aren’t where a killjoy died. Nobody likes to stay in the spot where they died. More often, it is a ruin that they had loved, or a hill they had watched the faded sunbeams from, or a mural with a quote that had stayed with them for years. They go back to the places they lived the most and haunt them. The noise and the colors of the killjoys fade in these areas, and they are a place of mourning.

Not even the dracs stay in ghost spots. The masked are too close to the dead. The living are too far away. Killjoys can feel the chill of spirits’ breath and know to keep away.

Ghost spots are vacant. Desolate. Lonely.

They are created from the ‘joys that gave their colors. Every death has an impact, and these are the ricochets of a killjoy’s death.


	4. Dulcet Destiny

The Phoenix Witch writes prophecy with a raven feather and scarlet ink. She creates destiny with a flourish and a swirl, words written in the future of the Zones. She watched and She waits and She listens, hearing every killjoy’s prayer, following the voices of those who seek Her out.

She finally properly meets Party Poison nearly a decade after they died. It really isn’t that long, in Her terms. Some ghosts go half a century before She finds them. Some ghosts never meet the Phoenix Witch.

Party Poison looks the same—vibrant red hair falling against calloused, scarred skin, hazel eyes set in a hard, determined face, even in death. Time moves differently for the dead, but a decade is still a long time to wait, no matter how strangely time elapses. 

They don’t notice her as she moves towards them. They are watching a girl, the Girl, as she carefully places a yellow mask on the Witch’s Mailbox. A sad smile rests on their lips, and when the Witch steps forward, taking a strange outline of the mask in Her hands, Party Poison turns to Her.

She does not hold the mask, but a soft, glowing outline of a soul. She can feel their life in flashes—music blasting from speakers, lips against lips, vibrant bursts of pure emotion. She doesn’t need to look to find their life. She knows their life because She wrote it Herself.

Party Poison smiles at Her. “So you really do exist?”

The Phoenix Witch grins back from behind Her skeletal mask. She says, “Party Poison, I’ve been waiting for you.”

Then She reaches her hand out, beckoning, just as they beckoned to the Girl when they first took her from Battery City. They look wordlessly from the Witch’s hand to the Girl, in the land of the living, tears running down her cheeks. Their gaze softens when it lands on her face, and they take a breath.

“Come,” the Phoenix Witch says. “There is another world for you. She is alive, and you are not. Besides, your crew is waiting for you.”

They jerk their head away. Then Party Poison takes Her hand and says, “Take care of her for me, will you?”

She says, “I don’t need to. She takes care of herself. But I’ll look after her. For you.”

She leads their ghost to the next world, and Party Poison sighs involuntarily. They are finally, finally at peace.

In the land of the living, a black raven flies away from the Mailbox, one of its tail feathers falling to the ground at the Girl’s feet. She picks it up and smiles, and her whispered prayer follows the raven.


	5. Art is a Weapon

Art is the lifeblood of the desert, and no matter who they are, every killjoy makes some form of art. Color is a spit in the face of BLi. Killjoys use carbons for spray paint that will be chipped away, on pens that will dry out, on patterns embedded inside skin that don’t matter when they get dusted. They drown out the world with music. But every piece of art means something. The symbols and songs and colors are beautiful stains across the walls of Battery City. They stoke the fire that burns inside of every killjoy. 

Better Living Industries tells children that art is selfish. Money for paints, for pretty pens, for patterns in skin, all of it is selfish. That money could be used to make people’s lives better. Art is a waste. A waste of money, a waste of materials, a waste of space. 

They teach children to hate it. What is color but a useless pigment? What is music but a meaningless collection of sounds? What is art but an imperfection? Give in. Let go. Become better.

BL/ind raises children on cold, on empty walls and emptier static. A Scarecrow holds nothing but straw. A draculoid is sucked dry of anything. Battery City is white and clean and perfect. 

Would you destroy something perfect to make it beautiful?

Art is a weapon.


	6. The Profit of Fear

Every killjoy gets nightmares. BL/ind reigns over everyone, and fear follows its cruel, vicious footsteps. Terror touches the hearts and minds of every killjoy in the desert. 

Jet Star dreams of death. Death spreads like sand all around him, but he is still standing. He dreams of every person around him falling, falling, _falling_ , and him not being able to save them. He dreams of those he left behind, their bodies rotting, battered by the dry desert winds, their masks slowly buried underneath the dirt. He dreams of his family dying, of him not being enough. He dreams of being the last one left, the final domino to fall. Jet Star is so, so terrified of being alone, of not being able to save anyone, of not being enough.

Party Poison dreams of failure. Of dying, and no one mourning, no one left to carry on their legacy. They dream of every attempt to live forever being buried, like fire being doused by heavy sand. They dream of all they built being torn to pieces and left behind, of their family being burned away, of the Girl being led into the City and never let out. They dream of all the chances they could have lost, all the what-ifs that haunt them. Party Poison is scared of being forgotten, left in the dust of memory, just another pile of ashes that blows away in the desert wind.

Kobra Kid dreams of lies. The beautiful, spun lies of Battery City, haunting him to his death. He dreams of those pills—tiny, colorful lies. He dreams of the thing that was not his mother, her haunted, empty gaze. Shivering against his sibling, the lies’ fallout finally comes in the form of shivers that steal up and down his nerves. He dreams that every whispered _, “I’ll be okay,”_ is just another lie. Kobra Kid is horrified to be wrong, because if he is wrong, then someone is dead.

Fun Ghoul dreams of apathy. He dreams that no one _cares_ anymore, that they all leave him, not because of death, but because they can see inside of him. He dreams that they can see every twisted edge, every broken piece, every lost, beaten part of him. He dreams that the family he had built sees all of _that_ and turns away, leaves him in the dust just like everyone left him. He dreams that everyone sees him for what he is and runs, keeps running. Love can fall apart, friends can let go, family can disappear. Fun Ghoul is so _afraid_ to be left behind.

But every killjoy values their nightmares. Fear is just another reason to keep fighting, to keep creating, to keep running. And fear is a reminder. A reminder that your crew is your family, and that they will give you comfort, give you truths, give you love. Your crew is here for you, and they are the ones who will get you through the night. 


	7. Of Lovely Lies and Broken Truths

In the Zones, history exists in pieces. There is never a complete tale, and the past is like a large rock in the center of the river that is time. Slowly, slowly, as time elapses and those left to remember disappear, the past wears down to the size of a pebble, and finally disappears.

Dr. Death Defying tells bits and pieces of history, mementos and memories trapped in sound and static. There are books and music and paintings, art of a world long gone, but it is all too scattered, much like the Doctor’s broadcasts. Too little pieces of a puzzle that spans too many years. But the desert is known for having too little of everything and still surviving. How is this any different?

In Battery City, history is a lie. Pretty words paint over truths. The dirty and ugly are covered, washed away and coated with too-thick white paint, kept hidden and away. In Battery City, they smash the rock to pieces and tell you it was never there. History is too ugly, too honest. History is a menagerie of scars BL/ind doesn’t want anyone to see. 

_Look away,_ they say. _See the rich. See the luxury. See the smiles._

In Battery City, truth means nothing.


	8. Sterile Virtues

**Excerpt of _Insurances for the Health and Safety of Battery City: A Report_ , an informational essay written by leaders of Better Living Industries when the company first took power:**

“When it comes to our decisions, our company does not believe in words like ‘torture’ and ‘killing’. Words can carry too much implication. There is no ‘torture’ in Battery City because there is no pain. There is no ‘killing’ in Battery City, because ‘killing’ implies the expectation of rebellion and grief. These words bring with them emotion and justification, which are both ill-advised by our company. They give a cruel light to what Better Living considers a helpful guide for good citizenship. 

Instead, our safety strategies are called Re-Education and Elimination. 

The first few times a law has been broken, the criminal is taken from their residence and brought to Better Living officials, where they are only partly Re-Educated using Nerve Stimulation for Misguided Youths, or NSMY, which is how we find and fix what has broken inside of a citizen. When he or she is deemed ‘ready’, he or she is given a new medication and brought back to his or her home. NSMY is only for youths. After all, there are no misguided adults in our great city. Misinformed and unproductive adults are a drain and a damage to the system, and all rebellious adults must be eliminated immediately.

If such behavior does continue, however, citizens of Battery City are completely Re-Educated. His or her memories are carefully wiped of disruptions such as violence, emotion, and rebellious ideas. Then he or she is sent back to his or her home. Note that this is a solution to problems with older teenagers, and can be highly unpredictable, as new systems often are. However, replacing citizens can be expensive and time-consuming, and death tolls, especially among those who are to enter the job market in a few years, cause a loss of productivity, so this is a welcome pursuit we are now researching into. After all, productivity is imperative over all else in Battery City. 

If problems continue and/or become more drastic, then a full Elimination is required. Depending on the situation, citizens are either terminated or given an application to become a draculoid or a Scarecrow. All citizens should know that applications are not requests. They are orders. If a citizen is worried about a child or a family that he or she knows will be opposed to these actions, our committee has found a valuable and helpful solution. We are, after all, a considerate and open-minded company, and we will gladly replace the citizen with a look-alike until such a time that it is unnecessary. 

Note that Re-Education and Elimination are for the safety of the citizens. These precautions are completely necessary and of the utmost importance, as rebellion and anarchy like that in the surrounding Zones can ensue if we do not protect citizens. We at Better Living Industries work hard to ensure that Battery City is a safe and productive place for all. Have a better day.”

**This report was found pinned in the Neon District (also known as the Lobby), with the words _“B-LIES”_ spray painted in red on top of it. The paint has been removed, but the culprit has not yet been found.**


	9. Drowning in Silence

Party Poison hates silence. They thrive in music and art, loud and unapologetic, and the fire that burns inside of them blazed high in ruin, in noise so deafening it drowns the rest of the world out. They live and breathe beats and melodies, and they grin at every one of the thousand ribbons of passion that is inlaid in every sound.

Battery City had always been too quiet. Something inside of Party had always felt trapped, cornered, pinned between the white walls of the City. They had been given handfuls of pills and told to _sit down, shut up, stay put, stop_. And the pills did something to them. Each tiny bite of poison had shifted some part of Party’s brain, stopped them from moving, from talking, from thinking. Every movement and idea that had come to them felt sluggish. They had felt like they were constantly drowning, gasping for breath in an endless ocean, sinking between monochrome waves.

It had been music that saved them.

A lone melody that they had heard when they had found their way to the Lobby. It had burned crimson and gold in their mind, and from behind their eyes, they could see gemstone green and violet breaking through the cold static. That had been the first time they had reached out and something had reached back. Music had been their lifeline, and they would always remember that.

But the silence of the City still haunts them. At the dead of night, when the quiet is too thick, too cold, too deep, they can feel the silence press on their skin like water on stones in a river, coating them, and digging _in_. Digging into every little hole, every uncertainty, until Party Poison is shaking and tears are running down their cheeks and it’s too _quiet_. And suddenly they are back in the City, pills down their throat, static in their ears, white and white and _fucking white_ all around them. They can remember all the moments before they had come to the Lobby, they can remember grasping for empty air and finding _nothing_ to hold on to. 

Party Poison will always remember a time before music, and they will always, _always_ remember drowning. 


	10. The Butterfly Effect

The child that becomes Party Poison lives in a tiny apartment with a father that is taken in for questioning and a mother that doesn’t look quite right. They live in a colorless home with a brother that smiles too little and static that plays too loud. The child, like any person in Battery City, lives with pills and cold, monochrome streets, trapped between harsh walls.

They don’t see color until they are twelve years old. The pills kept that from them, sapped the sun and sky and stars of anything. 

The first color they see is red.

They had forgotten to take their pills that day. It had just slipped their mind, the task falling away like autumn leaves. A subtle mistake. A small misfortune. A butterfly flaps its wings, and a hurricane ensues.

A glass cup falls, and years down the line, a white gun rests under Party Poison’s chin. The cup lands on hard tile, and the Girl escapes BL/ind’s grasp once again. The glass shatters against the floor, and the Girl frees the souls of Battery City. One domino falls, and the rest follow.

They see a thousand tiny reflections of themself in the pieces. Mechanically, they reach down and start to clean the glass, but a long shard catches on their arm, drawing blood. The child hisses at the cut, and something about the mix of color and pain breaks through the pills’ fog. For a split second, they stop drowning.

They look at the cut, crimson flowing down their arm. Although pain still radiates from the wound, the child stares at the color, enraptured. They don’t know how long they stay there, staring and staring at it. But eventually, they put every piece of the broken cup except one in the garbage. They bandage their arm and tell their parents that they took care of the problem. 

Their father has not been let out of questioning yet.

The thing that looks like their mother tells them, “Have a better day tomorrow,” a smile on it’s lips. The thing’s eyes are vacant, cold, and something about it is inherently _off_.

When the child walks back upstairs, they carefully take out the sharp piece of glass and experimentally cut a line on their thigh. Fresh rivulets of red run out, and they stare again, morbid fascination in their eyes. Color is so strange to see for the first time. They aren’t even sure what it is. But they know that they want, _need_ , to see more of it. 

So, weeks later, they sneak into the Lobby, stare at the neon signs and strange words on the walls. The color had been a fluke, and when BLi had found out that they weren’t taking their pills, the child’s mother watches them every day as they swallow the pills. They are, once again, drowning. It is a droid that saves them. A droid, arms and legs broken and sparkling, singing because it knows it is dying. The music embeds itself in the child’s ears, melodies sparking light and colors behind their eyes. A hand reaches through the static they are drowning in, and they take ahold of it. 

They learn, in that district, the stories of the desert. Colorful rebels called killjoys, with fire in their eyes and gasoline in their lungs. Spray paint on empty walls, marking stories and lyrics and poetry. Buildings brought to dust and ash, ruin running through the Zones like blood. 

They learn that the desert has more color, more music, more _life_. So they take their brother and run. 

But they take something else. A long, thin piece of glass wrapped in cloth, with crimson blood long since dried brown. It is a reminder.

Beauty comes at a price. Color comes with pain. A helping hand has claws. 

A revolution requires sacrifice.


	11. Echoes

In the end, noise is all the Fabulous Killjoys leave for the Zones. At the end of the line, when four bodies bleed themselves to death, when their colors are taken away and they are forced back into conformity, even in death, the Fabulous Four only have noise. They have only echoes to serve them. Distant calls from the past that still ring, loud and clear, throughout the desert. They make their impact in sound.

Party Poison leaves battle cries in the air, calls for revolution hanging in the static. They bring with them chaos and rebellion, and every killjoy in the desert can almost physically hear them shouting from atop a rooftop, fires burning all around them, ash falling from the sky like rain. Battle cries are speeches, but they are also spray paint against bare walls, ray guns in the empty heat of the desert, the roar of an engine. _Do you trust me?_ Party Poison had cried to the desert. _Then fight._

Kobra Kid leaves behind whispers, hushed rumors and spreading wildfire. He brings the other side of revolution, the quieter sort, spreading discontent the way one spreads a virus, until the entire desert is alive with it. Without Kobra Kid, Party Poison would be nothing but another flame, another match that blows out with a gust of wind. Rumors are just another type of battle cries, seeds that grow with time and cultivation. They take root in the minds of both Zone-rats and City folk alike, and they lay dormant in the soil of waiting minds until just the right moment. _Do you trust BL/ind?_ Kobra Kid’s whispers had hung in the air. _Then fight._

Jet Star leaves stories in the desert sky, quiet words spoken around quieter campfires, his voice barely taking over the sound of crackling wood. He brings hope and love and pain, but most of all, he brings motive. When Kobra Kid’s rumors and Party Poison’s battle cries have slipped your mind, what do you remember? You remember legends, you remember beginnings and middles and endings, the story beats run in your mind like nothing else. Story isn’t safe, and it never will be, and it is another sort of revolution. Better Living hates stories, they hate anything that doesn’t fit into a box, and they hate having to listen to other voices. _Do you hear them speak?_ Jet Star had asked, quiet and calm in the dying light. _Then fight._

Fun Ghoul leaves explosions, shocks of fire and gunpowder, chemicals and batteries lighting the sky into thousands of colors. He brings action to the air, detonation ringing through the static, breaking free of cold, empty silence the way music does—loud and proud, not hiding behind anything. He brings a spectacle, arson and arsenic in his blood, and everyone can see the explosions scrape the stars, light up the sky, hitting BLi where it hurts. _Do you see them burn?_ Fun Ghoul had said, teeth bloody and broken. _Then fight._

Their voices echo throughout the desert, even when time elapses and ghosts move on. You just have to listen.

_Do you trust me?_

The future is bulletproof. Killjoys, take out your ray guns. Stand. Walk into fire, and let Better Living Industries burn around you.

_Do you trust BL/ind?_

Never let them take you alive. Never let them turn you into nothing, because you are always something. 

_Do you hear them speak?_

Art is the weapon. Keep creating, keep bending and breaking rules, keep doing everything BL/ind doesn’t want you to do.

_Do you see them burn?_

Create and destroy as you see fit. Let them burn. Let them break. Let all of it crumple into ash, let yourself change and destroy and create what you like.

Noise and echoes may be all the Fabulous Killjoys have left, but every person in the desert can carry them on. Do you want anything to change? Do you want to break the wheel, change the system? Do you want to live in a world with art and beauty and music?

_Then fight._


	12. Pathways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an extra for [no rays from the holy heaven come down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23403700). Basically, it's really easy to slip into the Girl's voice, and this is how I would write the last scene of the comics.

_You are what tomorrow needs_.

The syllables fall in place easily, like they were always meant to stay there, like it had been written with the Phoenix Witch’s raven feather, dipped in the ink of destiny. They seem to carry notes with them, truth spun together with lies. Simple words turn to battle cries turn to music. Song is power, and it will always be a weapon of the Zones. Art is the weapon. Art is _your_ weapon.

 _Is it a weapon now?_ you wonder, standing by the Mailbox. _Does it need to be?_

You stare at the masks sitting there. You have no ghosts anymore. You have no spirits haunting you, the Witch has taken Party Poison on, She has brought Cherri to the next life as well. Every ghost that has followed you, indirectly or directly, had been set free by you. 

You’re untethered. 

You’re free. 

You don’t know how to feel about that. Party Poison’s mask has been your anchor for so long that you don’t know how to swim without it. 

_You are what tomorrow needs._ Are you? You set the souls of Battery City free. You brought down Better Living Industries with words, with syllables stitched together in your mind. You did what the desert has always said you would. Does tomorrow still need you?

Yes. Because you, Girl, you are not _just_ a bomb. You are not a savior, or a symbol, or a cause. You will always be more than that, because you will always be more. A bomb can be set off by anyone, and it will destroy everything. You were never just a bomb. You can burn down the world, yes, but it will always be your choice. 

_That_ had always been the truth. That is the truth you spent all of your life searching for, combing up and down the desert, reaching in between sand dunes and ray gun fights, only for that truth to come from yourself. You had learned this by seeing, by hearing, by experiencing everything that came to you. The truth is that _you always had a choice._

And this time, you are completely sure that the path you had taken was the right one. You could have destroyed Battery City. But you didn’t. You didn’t burn down every building, you didn’t turn it all to dust; you set it free. 

You can hear the low drawl of Doctor Death Defying’s voice. You had played the recording for the desert to hear. They need guidance. They need hope. And an ounce of familiarity can change a lot. 

And you needed to leave something for him. Give something to the Phoenix Witch, let Her lead him on. So you had placed the sword you borrowed and your radio next to the Mailbox. He had built his life in sound, after all.

A voice from behind you cuts your thoughts short. “Hey… excuse me—”

You turn. Long, dark hair. Blue-grey eyes. An old draculoid uniform, blinding white against the sand. Something catches in your throat, and you can remember, distinctly, the photograph Dr. D had given you so long ago. 

Your mother says, “I’m lost. Can you help me?” Then she pauses for a moment and studies you, intelligent eyes searching your face. “Wait… do I know you?”

You can remember Dr. D’s words. _She was hellfire. She fought for the future._

You know exactly what you had said back to him. _Well, her future didn’t come._

But it did. It came and you brought it along. A tear traces its way down your cheek, and she wipes it away without a pause. You grip her hand and feel the warmth coming from it. Another tether. Another anchor. But this time, you chose your anchors. Who binds you is your choice.

“You’re not lost anymore,” you say, looking into blue-grey eyes that look so much like yours.

There are endless tomorrows. There is a future you need to build and a mother you need to meet. There is a desert you will guide, there are people you will speak with. You will always be what tomorrow needs.


	13. The Poet of the Desert

Agent Cherri Cola is a poet first and a soldier second. He picks up a pen a thousand times faster than he ever picks up a gun. 

But when he hears about the Fab Four, he can’t write. Everything that comes out is slightly wrong in a way that he can’t explain. The phrases don’t fit and the words aren’t right, and there is no hope spelled in lyrics and rhyme, but the Zones need it. They need hope, they need _something_ after the Fab Four have gone. The bullet has already fired, and every Zonedweller can feel the ricochets. 

Cherri has already heard everything Dr. Death Defying has said on the topic. Dr. D is the confirmation of the desert. Once he says that the Fab Four are dead, the desert believes it. Dr. D has put a eulogy out, but Cherri hasn’t written a word.

Dr. D’s eulogy had been something along the lines of, _“The Fabulous Four are ghosted, but the Girl’s still kicking.”_

Cherri, as much as he likes Dr. D, doesn’t think it’s the best choice. The Girl… it’s just that she’s so damn young. She’s clever, and she has grown up too fast, but she’s barely _eight_. She’s too young to save the world, too young to be used as a symbol, and she’s certainly too young for this fight.

It’s almost three weeks after they died before he can write anything about them. It’s shit, and he knows it’s shit, but he has to say _something_. It’s not that the poem says anything that’s not true, it isn’t that it sounds disingenuous; but it’s meandering, tragic, and, unlike Dr. D, he doesn’t have a hopeful message. He doesn’t have a bright side. Cherri’s poem is misery and guilt, pain wrapped in a poem and left to wander the traveling ears of killjoys. It is a eulogy. An apology. An _I should have been there_. _I should have stood with you._ It’s all he can write.

But it isn’t enough. It isn’t what the Zones need.

Cherri doesn’t touch his own gun. There will come a time when he will. There will come a time when Agent Cherri Cola slips on his mask for the last time, and he will protect not a symbol, not a hope, not a savior, but a child. A Girl. His hand will rest on the trigger and he will save her, walking to the Witch in the same stride. But that day comes later. Much, much later.

The Zones do not need another spirit. They need a battle cry. They need revolution and rebellion, they need words to follow, a promise to the dead and the living alike. The Zones need vengeance, not misery. They need what Cherri tries, again and again, to give, but the words are never quite right. They have the wrong phrases, stir the wrong blood, and nothing _works_.

But he is always a poet first and a soldier second. So he picks up his pen and paper, and he writes another poem. Someday, the words will come. They have to. If they never do, then what has all of this been for? After all, what is the point of words if they never break the silence? 

Somewhere in the Zones, a pen scratches words onto a page, a phrase catches in his mind like a cloth catching on splintered wood, and Agent Cherri Cola shatters the silence like glass. A word will always give more of a push to the desert than the firing of a ray gun ever will. 


	14. Beginnings

The end of the world began with quiet. The governments closed in on themselves, disappearing for weeks at a time, a line of ducks at a carnival waiting for the first shot to fire. Quiet, then chaos. When they reappeared, they were no longer to be trusted. The momentary peace broke, and nuclear fire rang through the world. Most of the former United States of America either sunk between cold ocean waves or between the hands of radiation. 

And with the collapse of government, and with the breakdown of nature as a whole, the rubber holding the world together snapped. Wars began, a hundred different groups vying for control, panic and chaos spreading like wildfire. 

The radiation changed the world itself, shifted each particle along some invisible axis, and something in the inner workings of the world, the hypothetical gears and buttons, changed. The sands around what used to be California held magic and a sort of fire in them, and something sprang from it all. Belief, mixed with magic and pure luck, created what we know as the Phoenix Witch. Though she wasn’t called that yet.

Later on, another deity would arise. Belief and hope and desperation, the anguished cries of that which is beaten brings the coming of Destroya. Gods are made from passion in this new world. Almost everything is created from passion.

But not what came next. Better Living Industries took over after the Helium Wars, bringing peace to the former United States. Peace. That was the goal, in the beginning. The drugs were a side effect. The emotions were a side effect. The control of the world, the fist closing in on every citizen, was another side effect. The fist gripped so tight that it shattered everything it had built. After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

_All of this_ was built with good intentions. That was why it was burning. 

But burning was just the beginning. There are too many beginnings to the story, but this is the first domino to fall. Watch it hit the next one. Watch them all fall down, and trace the lineage of the fall from quiet. _Come,_ I will tell you. _Watch the world burn. Walk with me, and see the ash fall from the sky._


	15. Neutrals

Kobra Kid holds a tasteful dislike for neutrals. It isn’t that he hates them like he does with dracs or Crows, or that he wants to kill them or anything like that. It’s just that they don’t  _ do  _ anything. 

They’re all scared to take in killjoys, but it’s not like they do anything to help BLi either. And he understands that they just wanted  _ out _ of Battery City but didn’t want to fight.  _ But,  _ he thinks,  _ if they did anything for the rebellion then maybe we could win a few more battles.  _

It’s frustrating, watching so many people refuse to fight in war that they could easily help win. But Kobra understands some of that fear. The fear of choosing a side. If you choose one side of the coin, but the other lands, then what happens to you? You get crushed, taken and crushed under the winning side. And then you get erased, your name is wiped from history, painted white all over, and nothing is left.

But neutrals are already erased. Killjoys don’t really care for you unless you fight with them, and Better Living certainly doesn’t give a single shit whether a neutral lives or dies. No one except other neutrals care, but it isn’t as if they do anything with that care. Neutrals are just  _ there _ .

Art is fighting. It is the weapon of the Zones, and neutrals don’t pick it up. As much as he tries to spread rumors, to let whispers travel like ripples in a pond, as much as he tries to persuade anyone to join the cause, he can’t force someone to wrap their hands around a gun. That’s the  _ point _ of the Zones. No one forces you to do anything.

He just wishes that they would step out of the middle ground.  _ Pick a hill to die on,  _ he wants to say,  _ or no one will ever hear your cries. Pick a side or you will never be protected. _


	16. Radio

NewsAGoGo has an old radio. It’s a relic, a lucky find at the edge of Zone Six. She had found it just a few weeks before BLi blew Seven to the sky, and she loved the thing. It’s old and clunky, and it makes weird noises sometimes, but it works. It’s analog, just like everything they have. Newsie goes off the grid sometimes, and the radio is the only way to find her. They love being a DJ, she loves being a voice of the desert, but she can’t keep it up all the time. But she is a secret keeper. She listens to every word of BLi, and she collects whispers and rumors the way some people collect photos.

DJ Hot Chimp, though, she collects stares. She collects attention, moves forward when anyone else would move back. She’s passionate, and she loves having eyes on her. She’s a firework, lighting the sky with music, with broadcasts, with whatever will collect stares. All of it in the name of a long-dead rebellion. She had saved Jet Star years and years ago, and when the four of them got taken down, she had driven to the heart of Battery City to get their Girl out. She wonders, sometimes, if the Fabulous Four knew just how much their lives were intertwined with hers. She doesn’t go into BL/ind’s territory for just anyone. 

Some people say that Dr. Death Defying hides the Fabulous Four’s spirits in his static. That they hide in the buzz, travel through his waves, watch the desert from some strange vantage point. It’s rumored that that’s how he knows what happens in the desert. He can hear ghost whispers in the static, he plays the music from before and tells stories from the Analog Wars because he can feel the spirits of war watching him. That’s what they say, anyway. Truth comes rare in the desert, and no one really knows anything, but the Zones have always had a sort of strange magic to them. 

DJ Cherri Cola is a poet. But the thing is, a poet is never just a poet. He is made from thousands of puzzle pieces, placed together in the perfect arrangement to make words flow and move underneath his fingertips. He is a soldier, a part of a rebellion that died with its leader. He is an (ex) addict, and he can remember the pure bliss of riding the waves of heat that came from the warped and polluted sky in waves. He is a coward, who could have come to stand with the Fabulous Four but didn’t. He is a savior, who stepped in and died for the Girl. He is a fighter. A bastard. A Crash Queen. A poet is made from as many things as a radio is. 

The DJs are the backbone of the desert. NewsAGoGo keeps secrets spinning around the desert, a melodic voice behind the secrets that turn BLi to dust. DJ Hot Chimp is another beacon, another ray of hope. She is fire, warmth and heat and hope. Dr. Death Defying is music, beats and melodies and rhythms hiding messages and static that is never still. DJ Cherri Cola is a writer, and words spin from him like moths around a flame. Their voices are the Battle Cries of the desert. They are the ones who remain, and they are the ones who have seen everything. They saw the rise and fall of the Fabulous Four as much as the Girl did. And they are the ones most listened to, they have a push and pull on the desert. 

_Push_. A eulogy for the Fabulous Four.

_Pull_. A story from a long-ago past.

_Push_. A furious scream to burn.

_Pull_. A whisper left in open air.

They will guide you, if only you listen.


	17. City

Battery City feels inherently wrong in a way no one can explain. The air sits still inside the walls, monochrome streets and signs split the city into even grid pieces. Korse remembers, more than anyone, the strange world that is the desert.

He steps back into the city, back behind the white walls and white lies, with a careful mask on. Not a physical one, no. A neutral expression, blank eyes facing forward, arms at his sides. Korse knows what will happen already.

He will step into the city and check in, swiping key cards and giving his gun back to officials for them to check. Then he’ll go to the checkup room, let doctors and nurses test his muscles and take brain scans and do whatever else they wish to. Korse will walk white hallways and try not to feel. Then the Director will call him up, and he will go to her, loyal dog that he is.

It is the tenth anniversary of the Fabulous Four’s death. It is the tenth anniversary of him pulling the trigger underneath Party Poison’s jaw, of him leaving the lobby of an office building with four ghosts watching his every movement, of the Director smiling her practiced, perfect smile and giving him an award. It is the tenth anniversary of him doing what he had been told. 

The SCARECROW program is not kind. It leaves scars on his skin and numbing, cold pills in his system. The training leaves something twisted inside of him, a warped, wrong feeling sitting in his chest. He used to hold that feeling close as proof that the Director was right. That this feeling was proof that he was doing what had to be done. He isn’t so sure anymore.

He had just come in from the desert. It was hot, and he had detested it. He wasn’t supposed to detest things, he wasn’t supposed to feel, but he did. He had tried to shoot the Girl. She had been outside of the gathering he was investigating, He had seen the hatred in her eyes, saw the way her hand closed around her gun, saw the way she scrambled away from his shot. Korse had seen the Girl, and they had traded ray gun shots, but they both ended up alive. It’s a difference. She had walked away, and he had chosen not to take another shot.

He doesn’t know why he didn’t kill her. By all accounts, the Girl is a threat, too much of one to keep alive. She escaped twice from the city, she ran with the four most dangerous criminals, but Korse let her live. 

Had she seen the change? Something has shifted now, the warped feeling doesn’t feel reassuring anymore, it just feels like _weight_. Shifting sands in the pit of his stomach, twisting and turning.

He writes his account of what happened during the week, but he leaves out the Girl. If he mentions her, then he will have to explain why she is still alive, why he didn’t kill her. He is in the checkup room, his blood being tested and a body scan is taken. He lets his mind wander, but he keeps his face blank. The doctors are efficient and quick, moving with careful, almost robotic grace. 

He lets out a breath that isn’t quite a sigh. Battery City is clinical, cold. The doctors’ hands are equally cold, their rubber gloves sterilizing skin and taking samples. Korse knows he has a long day ahead. He will have to talk to the Director, which is an exhausting task in of itself, but Korse still has to file reports, train a few of the newer recruits, and hack into the cameras before he can talk to the man in the Battery City Privacy Gardens. He doesn’t know why he likes talking to the man. He just does.

He doesn’t know what the feeling that roots itself inside of him when he thinks of the man in the garden is either. It doesn’t matter anyway. The feeling is, by all rights, illegal. All feelings are. He understands, these days, the impulse to rebel that the Zonedwellers care so much about. But if he were to rebel, the man would be in danger. 

_Careful steps,_ he thought to himself. 

Don’t let her win. Don’t let her take him away. Do what you must to keep him here. Lie. Smile. Kill. _Don’t let him die._

He walks from the checkup room to the Director’s office. He takes a breath and schools his face to neutrality. He pushes into the room, a single thought playing in his head, over and over, almost like a heartbeat. 

_Don’t let her win._


	18. Memories

Dr. Death Defying remembers each face that comes to his station. He remembers everything, and sometimes, every moment that bounced around his head felt like a tiny cut. A thousand paper cuts can bleed a man dry.

The first rebellion is an utter failure. A few lonely souls that will never beat a megacorporation. Dr. Death Defying will remember every soul, from the Girl’s mother to the starved supplier that runs by his setup to drop off food and water. During the wars, everything has to be analog. Otherwise, BLi can track the digital signal and follow it to Dr. D. That is why they will call the wars the Analog Wars. The Doctor knows that they were always destined to lose. That is why, around his station, Dr. D will later keep a box full of photos. Locked memories, sealed and bound in the past. Sometimes, he will flip back through them and relive every moment. He never really needs the photos, though, because, in the end, he never forgets.

When the Analog Wars goes bad, when their leader is masked and Dr. D loses his legs, he escapes to his last remaining hideout. It’s obvious, right in the middle of Zone One, but it’s where no one would ever expect it to be. That’s why it’s perfect.

He begins to collect strays, learning names and voices and faces of the desert, until his web stretches from the inside of the city all the way to the outer reaches of Zone Seven. He trades messages and music with Newsie and Hot Chimp, and wastes good carbons on Tommy Chow Mein. Eventually, a sunshine by the name of Show Pony stumbles into Dr. D’s place, a bleeding shoulder pulsing against their hand. Dr. D takes them in and takes care of them, and they just never leave. Not for long, anyway. They send out reports and messages, and they bring back replies and music and supplies. Dr. D gets into the rhythm of it, and it’s nice, being able to talk with someone he can see, rather than speaking to empty static.

The Doctor finds the Fabulous Four in pieces before they come together. He and Pony save the little kid who soon becomes Jet Star, and he remembers the boy’s hair and face, though aged with loss, years later. Pony, later, brings in a tiny spitfire of a kid, half-dead, who runs away in a blitz, and who will come back as Fun Ghoul. Pony drags in the two dehydrated soon-to-be corpses that become Party Poison and Kobra Kid, too. Dr. D and Pony get them on their feet, and he gives them the rundown of the desert. They had, apparently, just escaped from Batt City. He lets them all do their thing, whatever that may be, for a while.

When Zone Seven blows and fills with radiation, Doctor Death Defying knows every soul that was dusted. He spends weeks listing them all, hoping to the Witch that his words embedded in the static are enough for Her to take their souls on.

He continues catching and releasing strays, and, at some point, the four Crash Queens he had saved so long ago become a crew. The Fabulous Four run favors for him, and they do them well. It had been a while since he had seen jobs done so spectacularly. They also cause quite a ruckus. Dr. D can see a real leader in that Party Poison, and he can see a real problem for Better Living Industries. Eventually, he asks them to get in and out of Battery City for a very specific job. They plan it out, and it goes well.

And that is how he first sees the Girl. She looks like her mother, the same face, the same curious hazel eyes, and the same wanderlust. He can see the leader in her, even clearer than he does with Party Poison. They might be the flame of the desert, but she will shake the world. Dr. D just knows it.

He finds DJ Cherri Cola there, too. He had helped with the job, slipping into the wall and setting up distractions. Cola is a poet and an ex-addict, but Dr. D trusts him. The Doctor can tell, sometimes, which faces to trust. 

Dr. Death Defying sees the Fab Four a few more times before they die. They run jobs and heists, but they have a target on their backs, and eventually, BL/ind’s shot will hit the bullseye. The Girl survives, though, in the end. DJ Hot Chimp guns her van in and out of the city, and they pick up the Girl with Pony running point. She survives, but the Fab Four don’t. 

Eventually, the Girl leaves as well, running from her past, or maybe it’s from her future. Dr. D can’t tell. He sees her a few more times, but she ages so quickly in the desert. Everyone ages quickly in the Zones. He stays with Pony and Cola for a while, but he starts fading from public sight. He doesn’t pick up as many strays, but he keeps his radio running. Sometimes, it feels like he can sense death before it happens, and Pony confirms every time that he’s right. The Doctor feels too old for this rebellion sometimes.

The new killjoys are different. They’re rowdy and violent, but not as a fuck you to BLi. They kill for the sake of killing. At this point, Dr. D thinks, we’ll never win this war.

He isn’t surprised when the new kid, Val Velocity, comes. He had never seen Val in person; he had only heard of him. He looks like a warped version of Party Poison. All the right parts in the wrong order. 

Doctor Death Defying doesn’t mind being ghosted. The desert has changed, and so has he. But he has committed all of his memories to a physical copy. In his hideout, there's a box of pictures of the old rebellion and a different box full of tapes about the newer one. He is made of memories, and he has walked every killjoy in the desert through a series of them all. He will always defy death. 


	19. Aftermath

Cold. The ray gun is cold against their skin, like water. No, not water. Water is soothing, a breath in the hot desert, a fresh, cooling force. This is ice. Ice cold, frozen metal fresh against Party Poison’s neck. Demanding, forceful. Shivers stealing up a spine, turning nerves to flame or sand or wind or all at once. They’re panicking inside, and they don’t want to die, not here, not now.

They’re backed up against a wall, no place to run or hide or disappear. Their crew is scattered, and the ray gun bursts seem to fade in the background, falling into white noise. There’s a ray gun at Party Poison’s throat, and they are going to die.

It lingers there, and they stare into the eyes of the man that had chased them across the desert, only for Poison to step, willfully, into his trap. They aren’t ashamed of it. Anything for the Girl. Their crew didn’t even protest. The Fabulous Four had known that they were going to die, but that doesn’t make Poison any more ready for it. 

They can’t tell what’s happening around them. It’s all faded away, the beats made from scuffling shoes and the rhythms made from ray gun blasts hanging in the air, a violent song where each dancer waltzes to their end. It is their end. 

The gun presses harder, and the cold seeps farther in. Korse smiles, something sharp and hateful in his gaze. Party wonders, absently, if Korse is capable of love. BL/ind prides itself on their lack of emotion, but they made a Crow that hates. If it hates, it must love. 

Poison takes a breath. Holds it. They give one last determined gaze, stare revolution into Korse’s eyes, as if they can push their spirit in. They lift their chin, look death in the face and let it do what it must.

_ Anything for her,  _ they think.  _ Even this. _

Nothing can describe the pain of having plasma blast into their skull, of  _ feeling  _ the lightning move around, burning through everything. Their nerves are on  _ fire _ , and they can’t move, they can only gasp in pain. 

The world goes white. Then it darkens, slowly, inch by inch. The cold comes back. It comes back in waves this time, not the single point of death. It laps up their body, and every white noise fades away to silence. The pain fades, and they float in cold. Cold like ice. No, not ice, not this time. Ice is pain, and this… well, this is just the absence of heat. 

They realize, then, that they aren’t breathing. Just floating. 

They open their eyes and see the world below them. Their body is gone, and they can see five body bags being carried from the facility.

Four.

Thank the Witch it isn’t five. 

“No need to thank me. She doesn’t die. Not yet, anyway,” a voice from behind Poison says.

They don’t jump, but they turn.

“Oh, you won’t see me, Party Poison. It’s not your time yet. I doubt you’ll remember this conversation.”

“What happens to her?” Poison asks, their voice rough. They aren’t surprised that She is real. They were never devout, but they had always known the Witch was real.

“The Girl? Well, I can’t tell you that one,” the Phoenix Witch says. They can hear a smile in Her voice. “Spoilers.”

They laugh dryly. “So I have to just keep watchin’? Waitin’ for her and waitin’ for you?”

“Yep,” the Witch says. “It’s okay. Time works differently here.”

“What’s the next life like?” Poison asks to the empty air.

They can feel Her presence, but they can’t see Her. Instead, they keep their eyes on the scene around them, watch their own body get transferred away, watch the cleanup crew wash away bloodstains and rebuild the lobby. 

“Again. Spoilers.”

Their voice is tinged with irritation. “I can’t know what happens to my Girl and I can’t know what happens after death. So do I just float here until someone brings my mask to the Mailbox?” 

The Witch’s laugh chills something in Poison. “You can watch what happens to the Girl. Watch the world until I can bring you to the next world. Think of this as a waiting room.”

A beat of silence fall between them. They wonder, distantly, how exactly time works here. Is the second of silence an hour? A year? A second? 

“Fair enough,” they say, brushing past the spiraling questions. They pause for a second. “Are you going to answer  _ any  _ of my questions?”

“About what? The world? The meaning of life? No, I would have thought you had found most of those out by living. As for any other questions… you’re not quite ready for those answers.”

They don’t argue. She is the goddess of death itself, after all.

Instead, they say, “I won’t remember this conversation.”

“No,” the Witch says, “you won’t. You’ll know most of the meat, the stuff you gotta know, but you won’t know that I was the one that told it to you.”

There’s a pause. Poison can see people going in and out of the lobby now, going about their lives. They had seen the cleanup of the attack in what felt like five minutes.

“Do you know what a ghost is, Party Poison?” They don’t answer, so She continues. “A ghost is static. It is the static on radio waves. You are that static now.”

Her voice fades, and the memory is already re-etching itself in Poison’s mind. They smile, or at least they feel like they are.

Running. That’s all they had ever done. They had spent their life running, running from the city, running from death, running from everything inevitable. They suppose it’s only fair that they spend some of their death running, too. But this time, it’s  _ their _ choice. They are running because they want to. They are sprinting on signals. Walking on waves.

They take the first step into the static and smile. It’s time to party.


	20. Now and Forever

Destroya sleeps. He rests beneath moving sands, smoke and radiation covering Him like a blanket. He sleeps, and in his dreams, He can hear prayers and pleas, cries for salvation and ruin. He hears the cries for revolution, the take-down of BL/ind; He hears His followers’ chants. He listens to them as they fall apart in the slums of Battery City, mistreated and broken. They are scraps of metal and wiring that remain aware of their ruined nature.

Desrtoya hears a silver droid crawl away from the city, dragging itself by its arms, scrapes and rust marring the silver metal of its body. He hears the whispered prayers of the damned, and He hears the sickening _crunch_ of droids being ground up and recreated in incinerators and factories. He hears every single body shatter and melt and meld, silent screams ringing out, pain and hate drenching the city. And yet He sleeps. 

He sleeps as time passes and the world shifts, He watches and listens and feels every movement of His people. He rests under the weight of sky and sand, and He waits under the watchful eyes of His people. 

The Phoenix Witch is the one that holds the reigns of destiny. She watches and listens, but She intervenes, rewrites and edits destiny to Her liking. Destroya is a constant. He has a purpose, and He has a time that it will come to pass, but until then, He waits in his slumber.

He wakes to a woman. Blue hair. Pale, plastic skin. And power, power traveling through the air, from a Girl that is a bomb to a blue-haired droid to His large, metal body. Electricity crackles inside of Him and He stands, holding His child in the palm of His hand, feeling her tremble and murmur His name.

He follows Blue’s call, and He walks along the path led by Red. His child dies in His arms, and He breaks into Battery City. He destroys the city, lets it break around them, freeing droids from their electrical cages. He throws blow after blow at the white walls, the monochrome streets, and when the Girl freed the spirits of the dead, freedom reigns. The sun and sky and sand stir into the city, and He leads His people to the desert. 

He sets his child to the ground, and hears her whisper, “Now and forever, Red.”

Freedom. _Life._ Now and forever.


End file.
